Three passenger cars formerly derelict on the former Tioga Central RR excursion operation out of Wellsboro Junction, Pa. have been spotted on Norfolk Southern train 11Z passing through Sunbury, Pa. tonight with North Shore RR reporting marks NSHR, presumably to join the North Shore short line family's fleet of special event excursion equipment normally based/stopred in Northumberland, Pa.

Cars spotted were former Tioga Central 500 Canyon Club, ex-CN built 1927; #300 Ives Run open-air car supposedly carved from a former PRR car; and #370 Crooked Creek, Ex-VIA 1370/CN 1370/CN 5384, diner built 1947.

Photo by Jack Pehowic.



Now, if PRR 1361 ever needs a local excursion fleet and route again.....................

Sigh.

The local folks who own the Wellsboro House, historic a bar and grill, right across the street from the Wellsboro Passenger Station (which they lease for their in house brewery) spent considerable effort to fix the passenger station platform because they were set up to provide food and drink to the Diner Train which was set up to depart from the passenger station.

But -- The Rail to trail Avalanche - not only tore up the rails between Wellsboro Junction and the Wellsboro Station area.

They chose to Demolish the NYC Freight Station building as well. A building in good shape and had a paying business. IMHO it would have made an excellent trailhead Welcome Center

Sigh Again. Two Capital Sins for the price of one.

Brian Helfrich

It looks like there were still customers, how come they shut the line down?

The open car was built in Thendara in 1979-80 from PRR P70 #1702 by the Adirondack Railway.

The pandemic is what ultimately shuttered Tioga Central.

The freight railroad, Wellsboro & Corning, depends a lot on frac sand traffic and I believe that has gone down significantly in the last five years. The line into town from Wellsboro Junction was last used to service OSRAM Sylvania (last operating incandescent light bulb manufacturing plant in the US) until its closure in 2016, and was later demolished.

These cars wouldn’t happen to be replacements for the ones Cut up illegally a couple of years ago would they?

Speaking of which, has there been any resolution of that case in the two or more years since?

North Shore did not own those cars. They belonged to Jeff Pontius and his Penn Valley Railroad.

I believe that makes it a car which sat at Peat Street in Syracuse for years at the MOW facility. Heard a story that when they redid the floor they forgot to leave access for the bolster pins, but you know how stories are.

When G&W took the operating contract on the W&C, the Tioga Central was already struggling; pretty much shut down and then (according to Contract) G&W was responsible to continue operating it as it ended up with it on the RailAmerica deal. So despite corporate 'policy', G&W was back in the direct passenger business. They had to hire a GM to keep it going.

Needless to say, there was no enthusiasm for that, either, so throw in the Pandemic and game over. When we were involved in the creation, there was a lot of inbound sand to the Osram plant in Wellsboro, that was the only real customer on the line. That declined to so low that Robey gave up on it and sold the operating contract to Myles; he literally struck oil to walk in at the exact time the frac sand business exploded there with the construction of a major frac sand terminal at Wellsboro Jctl, not Wellsboro. Rail America paid top dollar to buy out Myles; G&W got it by picking up Rail America.

GROW still owns the railroad, it's an operating contract.

The North Shore RR has made fast work on at least two of the former Tioga Central cars, as seen in their Facebook post:

https://www.facebook.com/NorthShoreRail ... o72uyGzX7l

There are for-profit excursion railroads that don't work anywhere NEAR this fast.